Liverpool have enjoyed their fair share of success both on and off the pitch under Jurgen Klopp since his arrival on Merseyside back in 2015.
The German has presided over the club’s finest era since the 1980s, winning the Champions League in 2019 and their first-ever Premier League crown a year later, along with a variety of other trophies. His diligence in the transfer market has allowed the Anfield club to develop players and take them to the next level, enabling success on the pitch.
The 55-year-old isn’t without fault, though, making a few mistakes along the way during his tenure at Liverpool. Those have been few and far between, but when a transfer hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, it has sometimes cost the club significantly.
The signing of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain certainly fits into this bracket, and despite the aforementioned trophies, he has failed to show the Anfield faithful during his six years at the club why he was signed in the first place.
How much has Oxlade-Chamberlain cost Liverpool?
The Englishman signed for the Reds in the closing weeks of the 2017 summer transfer window for a fee reported to be £35m, and having played nearly 200 times for Arsenal over the previous six years, it looked like it could be an excellent piece of business by Klopp.
His first season at the club was solid enough, recording five goals and eight assists in 42 matches, and it appeared to be a solid foundation for the player to build upon as Liverpool were beginning to catch fire under Klopp, reaching the Champions League final against Real Madrid that year.
However, a cruciate ligament rupture near the end of that campaign kept him out for nearly a full year, and truth be told, he couldn’t quite recapture his early form following that injury.
The previous four full seasons have seen the midfielder make fewer than 100 appearances across all competitions, having seen his chances limited due to a variety of injury problems, plus an influx of new talent into Klopp’s squad.
Despite Liverpool’s poor form this season, Oxlade-Chamberlain has still only managed to feature 11 times, and blogger Johnny Ward was not impressed by the Englishman’s recent inclusion in the team due to an injury crisis.
He fumed: “If Oxlade Chamberlain is the answer, the question has nothing to do with being a strong starting 11. Genuinely, a whole career of championship football with a handful of highlights. To be in a Liverpool starting 11 is a war crime. Atrocious.”
While that criticism might seem over the top, it is alarming that Oxlade-Chamberlain is the second-lowest rated player to start more than two league games this season according to WhoScored, a damning indictment that he has failed to take his chances to impress on the rare occasions that they come.
During nearly six years at the club, the 29-year-old has rinsed Liverpool for £72.9m (the £35m transfer fee plus £37.9m in wages over those 290 weeks at £125k-p/w), an astronomical sum for a player who has netted just 18 goals in 144 appearances during that time.
Of course, Klopp couldn’t foresee how many injury issues the Englishman would go on to have, but this vast sum of money could have been invested much better, and it will hopefully go down as a lesson for the future.
